


In Their Element

by ckxlcius



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Criminal AU, F/F, First Meetings, Lucy and Holly are thieves, M/M, Oneshot, Theft, but they’re only there later on, cursing, so are Lockwood and George, that’s about the only warnings this needs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 17:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16067852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckxlcius/pseuds/ckxlcius
Summary: The night was going smoothly. All Holly had to do was reach down and steal the man’s wallet from his pocket, and she would be home free.That is, until another thief goes and steals it first.





	In Their Element

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot is dedicated to labelledamesansmerci on tumblr as a welcome back gift!

Holly couldn’t take this.

Sure, she was raised right with etiquette, but the boy in front of her just wouldn’t shut up. She tried to recall his name, but she came up blank. He was chatting excitedly about his father’s vineyard, which to Holly was just mindlessly flaunting his wealth, and never giving her a chance to butt into the conversation apart from small nods and affirmations. 

The boy really was the picture-perfect victim of pickpocketing; scrawny, stupid, filthy rich, and almost scarily self-centered. It was good for her, though, since it meant that she wouldn’t have to forge an identity for the sake of conversation. All she had to do was smile along with his ceaseless chatter. 

She quickly zoned herself back into the conversation because his appearance had seemed to go sullen. “He died a few years ago, and my father hasn’t been the same since.”

Holly gasped— clearly faked, but he bought it— and made herself look saddened by that news. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been devastating.”

“Yes, it most certainly was.” The boy gave a self-pitying sigh and leaned back on his stool. “I hardly knew him, but he’s how I received most of my wealth.”

She fought back the strong urge to roll her eyes. _Machiavelli was right,_ she thought, _‘men will sooner forget the deaths of their fathers than the loss of their inheritance’._

As if on cue with the following silence, the band began to play a soft, slow song. Nothing too out of a romance novel, but the music was still quite goading. The boy stood and smiled devilishly down at Holly. “Shall we dance?”

“I’d love to.” Holly put on a flirty grin and laced his hand with hers. “It’s nice to see that gentlemen still exist.”

They slinked off to the dance floor with sly smiles on their faces, albeit for very different reasons. The moment they began to dance, Holly pressed herself closer to the boy and slid her hand down his side. 

“A nobleman like yourself must be quite a good dancer,” Holly murmured into his ear, hands skimming his body for pockets. “Care to prove me right?”

As boy gave some form of an affirmation, Holly‘s hand slid into his jacket pocket. She searched the pocket, only to come away with a business card. His wallet had been there— she was _sure_ of it. She had seen him put it there when he bought some expensive champagne earlier in the night. 

They swayed gently to the music with a calm silence between them. Of course, that’s only what it looked like from a distance. Holly’s hands, which were always steady, had begun to shake and she was failing at playing it off. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. 

The boy took it for nervousness, thank goodness, and tried to get her to relax and just enjoy the song. That was when Holly’s eyes caught a figure over the boy’s shoulder. 

It was a girl, definitely her age, sitting in the boy’s previous seat. She had a sleek bob cut, and Holly was shocked that it worked for form over function as well. The girl smirked and waved around a blue wallet with a lion carefully etched into it. 

Holly’s eyes widened in rage, and she glared furiously at the girl who stole her mark. Suddenly, she was pushing herself off the boy, never breaking eye contact with the thief. “Listen, I’m sorry John, but there’s someone that I need to talk to.”

As she stomped over to the girl, she could hear a cry of, “My name is James!” from behind her, but she paid him no mind. 

She wove through the crowds of people, eyes completely focused on the thief, who had started to flee the building. 

“Hey!” Holly barked. 

The girl immediately stiffened, glanced back at Holly, then ran faster. The moment she left the place, Holly’s hand was on the throwing knife holstered at her thigh. She could see the thief walking away, and Holly pursued at a pace that was unreasonable for wearing heels on an uneven path. 

“Hand over the wallet and no one gets hurt,” Holly growled. 

The thief stopped in her tracks, sighed, and slowly turned around with her hands held in the air with defeat. When her gaze met Holly’s, her eyes widened. “Wow.”

“What?” Holly snarled. 

“Nothing, sorry.” The girl pulled the wallet from the pocket of her romper. “But I have a proposition for you, since we’re doing business here so nicely.”

“You really think you’re in a position to be making demands?”

“I’ve got the wallet, haven’t I?” the thief taunted. 

Holly twirled the knife in her hand and smirked, and the girl seemed to get the message, backing against the cobblestone wall behind her. 

“Listen, could we just split it fifty-fifty?” she pleaded. She was clearly getting nervous between her survival instinct and the wallet. 

Holly felt a twinge of guilt at that, but she forced it behind her threatening demeanor. “You should’ve stolen from your own target.”

The thief made to negotiate for less, but she was cut off by a shout from the building. Holly whipped around and groaned in frustration. 

“That’s her!” the kid, James, shouted to the half dozen guards around him. 

The girl cursed loudly, pocketing the wallet. “Damn it! Come on, we gotta go!”

Holly sneered. She was going to give this girl hell for this. The girl turned and bolted, glancing back to make sure that Holly was still following. She tore after the thief, who began to start surveying the street. Holly could see her counting the alleyways on her fingers, which could have been either very disconcerting or very reassuring. 

“Listen, wallet girl, you better know where the hell you're going!”

“The name’s Lucy,” she called back, “and you’ve got nothing to worry about. Just follow my lead, and we’ll be outta here in no time.”

After Lucy had counted to at least seven or so on her fingers, she suddenly swerved to her right into a narrow alleyway. Holly ducked in after her, but quickly stopped as she was met with a looming brick wall. 

“Oh, _hell_ no.” Holly crossed her arms and glared up at the wall. “I can’t clear that in heels.”

Lucy smirked and glanced down at Holly’s high heels before walking over to her. “Good thing I can,” she murmured. Before Holly could ask what that meant, Lucy had thrown her over her shoulder. 

“What the fuck?!”

“Be quiet, we’re running from the cops here,” Lucy shushed as Holly continued to shout indignantly. “Now, stop squirming and let me do this.”

Lucy grappled with the crevices in the wall until she got a proper foothold. She had a white-knuckled grip on the few cracks she could find, and she subconsciously held Holly closer. Once she pulled herself up high enough, she hoisted Holly up onto the top of the wall. 

Holly scrambled up onto the wall and glanced anxiously back to the street beyond the alley, then back down to Lucy. 

“Hey, why’d you tell me your name? Aren’t you worried about the cops?”

Lucy grunted out a laugh as she threw herself on top of the wall. “Well, it’s not like you could rat me out, since you were stealing from the same guy anyway.”

Holly felt her face heat up as she shifted. She didn’t even think of that.

Lucy seemed to notice this, and she snickered. “Besides, ‘wallet girl’ didn’t exactly have a nice ring to it, believe it or not.”

Before either of them could change the topic, one of the guards walked in front of the alley, and they both held their breath as they moved farther into the shadows. Holly mentally cursed herself for not jumping the wall sooner, because the guard had a flashlight in his hand. 

Even in the dark, Holly could see Lucy’s features contort into worry. 

“Let’s go,” Lucy whispered. The moment she did, the guard turned into their alleyway. By the time his light reached them, all he could have seen was the tops of their heads as they dropped to the ground on the other side. 

Holly could hear the man’s shouts to the other guards as Lucy put her down again. “Did you really have to carry me down?”

Lucy barked out a laugh as they kept moving forward. “Please. There’s no way in hell that you’d have made the jump down in those heels.”

“You’re probably right.” Lucy turned a corner, and Holly glanced anxiously behind them. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“35 Portland Row,” Lucy waved a hand. “It’s probably one of the most inconspicuous-looking places in the world. The crew and I usually crash here when we’re not pulling overnight cons, which is honestly a lot.”

“Crew?” Holly asked as they made their way into the street. 

Lucy walked up the steps to a small place. It definitely seemed painfully average, which she supposed was good in this line of work. “Yeah, me and two friends. If they’re home when we go in, don’t ask how we all met, and don’t acknowledge how much we’ll be third-wheeling.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open. Holly almost visibly recoiled at the state of the place. There were clothes, plates, and empty bags of crisps strewn over nearly every surface, and she had to physically restrain herself from picking them up right away. 

“Lockwood! George! Get down here!” Lucy called up the stairs. “Oh, yeah, they’re gay, so I suggest you leave right now if you have a problem with that.”

Holly could hear shuffling coming from the floor above them. “Definitely not a problem,” she admitted with a laugh.

Lucy only smiled. “I knew you’d be a good fit around here.”

Finally, Lockwood and George came stumbling down the stairs. Holly could see Lockwood relax when he saw that Lucy was unharmed, and it could only make her wonder how many times Lucy had come back here injured. 

“Hey Luce.” George looked Holly up and down and glared. “Who’s this?”

Lucy walked into the kitchen and pulled the wallet from her pocket. “Her name’s Holly. I stole her mark and nearly got arrested, so I figured we’d come back here to divvy up the money.”

“Anthony Lockwood, and my associate here is George Cubbins.” Lockwood held his hand out with a soft grin, and Holly hesitantly took it. Associate is putting it lightly.

“Ooh, you got someone close to Rotwell?” Lockwood eyed the wallet. “You don’t see Rotwell’s logo embossed on just anything.”

“Only the best,” Lucy said triumphantly and smirked at Holly. “Not sure you knew that, though. I could see your eyes practically glaze over when he talked.”

Holly crossed her arms and huffed. “Could you blame me? The guy never stopped!”

“I’ll give you that one. Now, could you guys leave me and Hol to negotiate for a moment?”

Lockwood dragged George out by the elbow, who had a distrusting look in his eyes. She could hear them whispering to each other as they left the room.

“So!” Lucy clasped her hands together. “Should we split it 40/60? You get the majority, of course, since you kept the guy occupied long enough for me to steal it.”

“Well, let’s see how much is in it, first.”

Lucy opened the wallet, and a contagious grin split across her face. Holly giggled, though she wasn’t sure why. 

“If I knew that unattractive men had this much money, I might actually start going for them!” Holly marveled at the wallet’s contents. “There’s gotta be at least 1500 in here!”

As she began to count the euro notes, Lucy had a frown on her face. 

“What’s up?” Holly asked. 

“Nothing, I’m just curious about something.” Lucy leaned on the counter. “Why did you even go for James if he was so revolting?”

“Luce, the annoying ones are always the most desperate and oblivious to women. I just don’t like pretending to flirt with them.”

“Well, yeah, but sometimes even _I’m_ interested in the people I rob,” Lucy confessed. “Why do you think I stole from you, out of all people in that place?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Holly deadpanned, ignoring Lucy’s loaded question. “I’d never rob a girl that I’m interested in, so I go for men I couldn’t care less about.”

“Ah, that would make more sense. I’m bi, so I can’t relate as much,” Lucy admitted aloud, the deep blush on her face betraying her casual tone. “Now, should we split it 40/60 or 50/50?”

Holly hummed. “For making me run in heels, let’s go with 40/60.”

Lucy grimaced and ran a hand through her hair. “Right. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“All is forgiven with a little extra cash, love,” Holly smiled and batted her eyelashes. Lucy handed her the bills and Holly fanned herself with them dramatically with a pretentious laugh. Lucy snickered and grabbed her handful of cash, holding it triumphantly in the air and cheering. 

—

Holly looked back on that memory fondly, bringing a smile to her face as she pretended to listen to the story of the man in front of her. From the other seat next to the man, Lucy’s grin was scintillated in the dim lights as she silently toasted Holly with a glass of expensive champagne. Together, they were finally in their element.


End file.
